“Well, hell, I haven’t told you anything about myself, either,” said Tennyson. “Although I wouldn’t really mind. What I did or was never seemed important.”
“Story is,” said Decker, “that you were on the lam. That’s what the village says.”
“It’s true,” said Tennyson. “You want to know the details?”
“Not in the least,” said Decker. “Here, let me fill your glass.”
They sat in silent companionship, drinks in hand, watching the fire.
Decker stirred in his chair. “To appreciate Vatican’s viewpoint,” he said, “you have to ask yourself what a robot is. Too often we make the mistake of thinking of him as a mechanical man, and that’s not what he is. He is a whole lot more than that and a great deal less. I suspect that a robot often thinks of himself as a slightly different human, and in this, he is as wrong as we are. It’s strange that both robot and human should make the same mistake.
“The one question that must first occur to us is to ask ourselves if a robot is capable of love. Of loyalty, yes; of responsibility, yes; of logic, yes. But how about love? Can a robot actually love anyone or anything at all? The robot has no spouse, no children, no kin of any sort, no blood relatives. Love is a biological emotion. It should not be expected of a robot, nor should a robot expect to experience it. Because he has no one to love, a robot has no one to protect or care for—he doesn’t even have to worry about himself. With minimal repair and maintenance, he theoretically can live forever. He does not have the specter of old age to worry over. He does not have to amass a fortune to care for himself in his later years. In the way of personal relationships, he actually has nothing at all. Which leaves a big hole in his life, a lot of emptiness.”
“Perhaps,” said Tennyson, “he would not know about the emptiness. He would not be aware that he is empty.”
“That might be true if robots lived entirely by themselves, if they lived apart from biological beings. But they don’t; I don’t think they can. They’re hung up on humans; they must have their humans. And all these years, observing humans, they must realize, at least subconsciously, what they are missing.”
“So you think,” said Tennyson, “that, lacking the ability and opportunity to love, they turned to religion to fill the emptiness. But that makes no great amount of sense; religion is based on love.”
“You forget,” said Decker, “that love is not the only factor contributing to religion. There is faith as well. At times a very dogged faith, and a robot is so constituted that he could operate a long way on dogged faith alone. I would think that he could become, with very little effort, a fanatic that would put to shame any human zealot.”
“But is what Vatican has a religion?” Tennyson asked. “There are times when I think it’s not.”
“It probably started out to be,” said Decker, “and even now many of the simple members of Vatican still think religion is their true vocation. But over the years, Vatican’s objective has changed. I am sure of that. The Search now is aimed at universal patterns, at what any cardinal probably would define as universal truths. Which, when you come right down to it, would be far more attractive to the robotic mentality than any kind of faith. If, when they reach the end of the road they are following, they find, perhaps with some surprise, that after all they’ve discovered the true universal theology, they’ll feel fairly good about it.”
“But if they come up with something else,” said Tennyson, “they’ll not mind at all.”
“That’s exactly it,” said Decker. “You hit it on the head.”
The little puff of diamond dust still hung above the table, hovering like a protective wing over the huddled group of carvings. At times it sparkled, but most of the time it simply hung there, motionless, as if it might be watching.
The question rose to Tennyson’s tongue, but he shut it off. Decker must see the little puff of dust himself, must be aware that his guest also was seeing it. If any comment was called for, it was Decker’s place to make it. So far no questions had been asked, and that was the way it should be.
Decker said, “Back to the Heaven incident. Have you seen the tape?”
“It’s not a tape,” said Tennyson. “It’s a cube. And, no, I haven’t seen it. I’ve seen others, but not the Heaven cube. I had not wanted to ask. It seemed a sort of private thing.”
“You know, of course—in fact, you said that Vatican has a way to go and see.”
“That is true,” said Tennyson, “but there are no coordinates.”
“I have a hunch,” said Decker, then he said no more. Tennyson waited.
“Yes?” he finally asked.
“I have a hunch,” said Decker, “I know where Heaven is.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“I don’t know what happened,” said Ecuyer. “I haven’t the slightest idea. But now Mary insists she wants to make a second trip to Heaven.”
“If she can,” said Tennyson.
“I think she can,” said Ecuyer. “She is the best Listener we have. She has the capability to make a second trip. I don’t know what kind of capability is necessary to go back unerringly to a place again. But, over the years, some of our Listeners have demonstrated, again and again, they do have the capability. We have tried to determine what that capability may be. If only we knew what it is, we could train our people for it. But enough of that. What bothers me is why Mary should want to do it now. A few days ago she had no intention of it.”
“Maybe she wants to do something that will get her renewed attention,” said Jill. “You two fellows have more or less been giving her the treatment. You’ve put yourselves out to make it apparent to her she is not nearly as important as she thought she was.”
“It was the only thing we could do,” said Ecuyer. “Or, at least, I thought so and Jason concurred with me.”
“Right or not,” said Jill, “it apparently has worked. And now that she is going, is there any way you can impress upon her the necessity of picking up some coordinates?”
“We can talk to her,” said Ecuyer. “Try to impress the necessity upon her. Whether she’ll pay attention, I don’t know.” He said to Jill, “You might talk to her. Woman to woman.”
“I don’t think so,” said Jill. “We have never met. I doubt she’d trust me. It might appear that everyone was ganging up on her.”
“Decker,” said Tennyson, “seems to think he may know where Heaven is. I talked with him the other day—”
“How would he know?” asked Ecuyer. “How could he know?”
“He didn’t say and I didn’t ask. He has a phobia about his privacy. You do not ask him questions. I think he might have expected me to, but I didn’t. And having said what he said, he said no more.”
“You should have asked him,” said Jill. “He may have wanted you to ask.”
“I don’t think I should have asked. I may be wrong, but I had the feeling he was setting up some sort of test. He gave me several openings to ask questions on other matters and I asked nothing. I was burning to, of course, but I managed to keep quiet. He’s a strange man. Things were going well and I meant to keep them that way.”
“I think,” said Ecuyer, “that all these years we have written Decker off as a sort of freak. A loner, which he certainly is. A man standing apart and wanting to stand apart. Jason is the first one to get anything like close to him. That could be valuable; we don’t want to throw it away. I feel there may be far more to the man than any of us have guessed.”
Hubert came in with a new-brewed pot of coffee and refilled their cups, then, saying nothing to them, went back to the kitchen.
“He’s still huffy at me,” said Ecuyer. “I chewed him out the other day.” He told Tennyson, “You have to do it now and then. Keep him in line.”
“One thing you have to say about him,” said Tennyson. “He makes a splendid cup of coffee.”
“One thing I want to know,” said Jill. “Is Mary human? Is she still human? How many of the Listeners are human
?”
“Why, of course Mary’s human,” said Ecuyer. “Why should you ask?”
“The Listeners,” said Jill, “have had so many—what would you call them—other-worldly, perhaps—so many other-worldly experiences and not only that, but so often they have been or have seemed to be other-worldly creatures—I guess that I’ve been wondering how, in the face of all this, they have managed to retain their humanity.”
“I’ve often wondered the same thing,” said Ecuyer. “But no matter how often I have wondered, I have never dared to talk with any of them about it, to ask them about it. With sensitives most times you have to walk on eggs. All of them are strong personalities. Maybe that’s what saves them. Maybe a strong personality is a prerequisite for being a sensitive. But despite their strong personalities and deep strengths of character, many times they are haunted by their experiences. There are those who do refuse to go back to what they’ve found—willing to go on to something else, but not to what they’ve touched before. But there’s never been a crack-up. No single sensitive has ever become unstuck.”
Ecuyer finished off his coffee. “I suppose,” he said, “I best had go and talk with Mary. Jason, do you want to come along?”
“I think not,” said Tennyson. “I’m not her favorite person.”
“Right now, neither am I.”
“You’ve known her for a long time. That should help.”
“Maybe it will,” said Ecuyer. “Well, I’ll be seeing you.”
After he was gone, Jill and Tennyson sat for a time in silence, then Jill said, “It seems to me, Jason, we may be coming on something. I have that feeling in my bones.”
Tennyson nodded. “If Mary goes back to Heaven and if she does find something, if she finds more than she found before …”
“I don’t think I rightly understand what’s going on,” said Jill. “Vatican is divided in a funny sort of way. What’s dividing it? Oh, I understand some of it, but not all. The worst is that I don’t know what Vatican is. Is it a religion or a research think-tank? What does Vatican expect to find?”
“I would doubt,” said Tennyson, “that Vatican itself knows what it expects to find.”
“I’ve been thinking about the cardinal—I think it was Roberts, wasn’t it?—who said we will not be allowed to leave.”
“That’s what he said,” Tennyson told her. “Saying it almost in passing. I don’t know how hard the decision is.”
“At the moment,” said Jill, “the decision, for me, is an academic one. I can’t leave right now. I’m just beginning to dig out the history of Vatican. When I write my book—”
“Your book? I thought it was Vatican’s book.”
“My book,” she insisted. “It will sell billions of copies. I’ll wade in money up to my navel. I’ll never have to work again. I can buy anything I want.”
“If you can leave End of Nothing.”
“Look, friend, Jill goes where she wants to go, when she wants to go. There never was a place she couldn’t leave, never a spot so tight she couldn’t wiggle out of it.”
“Well, bully for you,” said Tennyson. “When you go, will you take me along?”
“If you want to go,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-four
It was as it had been before—the broad and singing road of light that reached deep into the distance, arrowing straight into the burst of glory that lay far and far and far. She was well above the road in a void that ached with emptiness; she was moving through the void toward the singing road, but not fast enough. She strained every nerve and fiber to speed her to that road of glory.
This time, she told herself, I will look the better. I will impress upon myself certain landmarks and certain signs and I will know where I am so I can tell them where I was, so I can offer proof of Heaven. For they did not believe me—and this time they must all believe. There must be no doubt or quibble. Coordinates, Ecuyer said, and what are coordinates? How do I find the coordinates that will convince them? For there might be none except those of faith, and in these they must believe. This time I must bring to them the faith that will force unquestioning belief, so that they may know I am the one who found Heaven for them.
I know what they want, she told herself. They want me to bring back a roadmap so they can crank up their ridiculous machines and follow me to Heaven. The fools, she thought, at once enraged and sad at their foolishness—the fools believe they can go physically to Heaven, not knowing that for mortals Heaven is—what had that moron of a doctor called it?—a state of mind. And he was wrong, she thought, he with his professionally kind face, his mincing devotion to his science. For Heaven is not a state of mind; it is a state of grace. And I alone, of all of them, am the only one who has attained the state of grace required to seek out Heaven.
The state of grace so laboriously attained, and yet, perhaps, not laboriously, for there had been no labor in it, no labor, but a striving—a striving toward that deep sense of holiness, the selfless submission of one’s self to a sweet authority. And at times, with all the striving, managing to touch the hem of holiness, but never grasping it; at times stripping away all thought of self, and then a stray, feebly wriggling, impossible-to-suppress thought of self creeping back again to cuddle against the emptiness to which it had been condemned. She never had attained her goal, she reminded herself—but enough, it seemed, to tread this road of glory that now lay just before her.
She came out of the void and her feet seemed to touch the road, although it did not feel like any road she had walked before. It was smooth and shining and it stretched straight before her, with the burst of glory far away. Perhaps, she thought, too far for her to walk. And what would she do, what could she do, if out of sheer exhaustion, out of lack of strength, she should collapse upon the road before she came in sight of the shining, lofty towers?
But there seemed to be no problem, for she did not have to walk. Somehow or other, she was being wafted down the road with never a step to take. The music and the singing welled all around her and she wondered for a moment if it was the singing, the strength of sonorous song, that carried her along.
She seemed to hang in a strange lassitude, with a mist closing all around her so that she saw only the road and the gloryburst at the end of it, although the lassitude was tinged with a consuming joy and she moved along the road through no effort of her own, as if a gentle tide had caught her and was carrying her toward a far-off shore. The music became more glorious and the light seemed to grow the brighter. She closed her eyes against the brightness of the light and a holiness (a holiness?) caught her up and held her.
Then, without warning, the music went away and a silence fell and she came down upon her feet, no longer carried, no longer held, with her soles pressing hard against the road. Startled, she opened her eyes. Much of the brightness, she saw, had gone from the light. There now was a glow rather than a brightness, and in the glow the mighty towers stood up against the high, blue sky. The towers, and there were many of them, rose white against the blue. Pure white against pure blue and from far away, from among the towers, came the hint of music that had the sound of falling water, with each falling drop striking a distinctive note that blended with the others.
She looked for the angels, but there were no angels flying. Perhaps, she thought, they were flying so far away, so high, that no mortal eye could see them.
Beginning just a short distance from where she stood was the staircase, wide and steep, and of the purest gold, climbing toward the towers, narrowed by distance as it climbed so that at the very top, it seemed a thin pencil-streak of gold.
It was far to climb, she told herself, yet she must—step by step, until she reached the towers. There at the top there would be trumpeters to greet her with a celestial flourish.
As she prepared to take the first step of the climb, the mists that before had closed her in began to clear away and, beyond the road, the ground spread out before her and she saw the rabble that camped there on either side of the road
. There were tents and huts and ramshackle buildings, with here and there great temples rising above the squalor, and crowded among all these, the rabble—a great concourse of beings such as she had never seen before. For some reason that she could not understand, she could not see them clearly, but she got the impression of horrendous shapes and hues, of a surge of terrifying life entangled in a loathsome mass.
She fled in senseless tenor up the great staircase, running with a desperation that left her weak and gulping. Finally stumbling, she fell and lay huddled on the stairs, clutching at the smooth stone in the fear that she might go sliding back into that pit of horrors.
Gradually she regained the even rhythm of her breath and the trembling of her body quieted. She lifted herself cautiously to look back down the stairs. The mists had closed in again; the rabble at the foot of the stairway again was blotted out.
Pulling herself erect, Mary started up the stairs again. Now the music was somewhat louder, although it still seemed far away. The towers gleamed white against the blue and a peace came down upon her, wiping out the terror that had engulfed her when she had seen the rabble.
The towers seemed as far away as ever. All the climbing she had done, all the running up the stairs, seemingly had gotten her no closer to the towers. And now, far up the stairs, she saw a dot that wavered in the golden light. For a moment she stopped her climb to watch, trying to make out what it might be. At first she thought it no more than bad eyesight. But the dot remained, dancing in the light reflected from the golden stairs.
Someone is coming to meet me, she thought. Someone is walking down the golden stairs to welcome me to Heaven!
She began to hurry—hurrying to meet that one who came to welcome her. The dot grew larger and ceased its wavering and she saw that it was man-shaped, that it walked upon two legs. But there was no sign of wings. And that was faintly disappointing, although she reminded herself that not everyone in Heaven necessarily would have wings. When she thought about that, she was astonished to realize how little she actually knew of the residents of Heaven. She had always thought of Heaven in terms of angels, and this manlike creature coming down the stairs was surely not an angel.